Dying Overseas: Reflections on Translations of Care in International Medical Travel Hospitals in Malaysia and Thailand

As people undertake medical treatments outside their own health care jurisdictions, complex clinical, ethical, and financial factors are involved. While a growing body of literature considers patients’ perspectives in medical travel, few have canvassed opinions from those involved in the clinical and physical care for medical travel patients. An article from Andrew N. Garman et al. (2016) is one of the few articles that provides care providers’ perspectives on medical tourism in six hospitals in Thailand, Mexico, and Singapore, yet little mention is made from the clinicians themselves about what they see as clinical accommodations necessary to adequately care for medical travelers. This gap is replicated within the medical literature. Much of the medical literature on clinical practice and medical travel has been concerned with patients bringing exotic new infections or antimicrobial-resistant infections to their home countries (Hodges and...